To Have Loved and Lost
by Misha
Summary: On Stephanie's wedding day, the man who loved her and lost her reflects. Could be either Babe or Cupcake.


To Have Loved and Lost  
By Misha

Author's Notes- This is a sad, sweet Stephanie Plum fic that can be either a Babe or a Cupcake, since I never identify the narrator. I wanted to, but I couldn't make up my mind, so I left it blank. This is a sad little piece, just one way I think the series and the triangle could end (though hopefully Janet is kinder than I am). Enjoy.

Pairing- Stephanie/Morelli, Stephanie/Ranger (you choose)

Summery- On Stephanie's wedding day, the man who loved her and lost her reflects. Could be either Babe or Cupcake.

Rating- PG-13

Spoilers- Vague ones for all fifteen books I guess, but nothing major.

* * *

She's getting married today.

It's taken a long time, but Stephanie Plum is finally settling down. She's a gorgeous bride, but then I always knew she would be.

I pictured it a thousand times, Steph all made up in the white gown and the veil, but the fantasy doesn't hold a candle to the reality. But then, I might be biased, after all to me there'll never be a more beautiful woman than Stephanie.

The only thing that the fantasy has over the reality is that in the fantasy, she was walking down the aisle to me and not to him. I guess, in the back of my mind, I always thought that someday she'd be my wife, but any chance of that future ended for good a year ago when some thug put a bullet in my chest.

Looking at it from the other side, I realize that's the only way the triangle was ever going to end, one of had to die and unfortunately it was me.

The thing is, it was always a possibility. I knew when I went into my line of work that there was a chance that someday I might die and honestly, I'd made peace with that.

Until her.

Oh, I had my family and friends, people who would cry if I died, but with Stephanie it was different. She made my life so much more brighter and fuller and I wanted to live for her, to have a future with her when the time was right.

But the time turned out to be never right and instead, all I could do is watch her marry another man.

He's beaming as he watches her walk down the aisle towards him, he knows what a lucky son-of-a-bitch he is. Maybe because he also knows that it could have been me there instead, if things had worked out different. His life is just as dangerous as mine was, he could have been the one who's luck ran out, and I could have been the one ended up with her.

Or maybe she would have chosen me anyway, without either one of us dying. If things had gone different, if if I hadn't died, maybe I would have been the one she chose. I'll never know for sure, but I like to think so. I like to believe that I could have been the one for her, that as much as she loves him, her heart belonged to me first.

But I'm sure he likes to think that too, that regardless of whether I lived or died, she would have chosen him.

I'm not sure which of us is right or if either of us is. Maybe she never would have been able to choose and one of us dying was the only answer.

We both had danger lives, both faced death on more than one occasion, so it was certainly always a possibility. She really did love us both, I know that.

Besides, it doesn't matter which one of us she would have chosen, because that day never came. Instead I took a bullet in the chest and a year later my rival got the girl.

Oh, I don't hate him, I never did, but we were never friends either. It wasn't just her, we had very different ways of looking at the world and clashed too often for us to ever be friends. The cop and the mercenary just don't mix too well, even when you don't add the love fo the same woman into the picture and when you do... Well, friendship was never going to be an option.

Still, I know he grieved my death, grieved partially because I was too young and it was a tragedy, but mainly for her. Because she loved me and he loves her too much to stand to see her in pain. I would have been the same.

I watched her at my funeral and I hated myself for being the reason she was in so much pain. Hated watching her cry over my coffin, unable to be consoled. Almost as much as I hated it that night when she crawled into my bed and cried herself to sleep holding my pillow.

She was my woman, my love and I wanted nothing more to be able to comfort her, to wipe away her tears. Instead, I had to watch as another man did that. Not that night, that night he'd realized she needed to be alone, but for all the nights that followed, he was there and he helped her mourn and in the end, he got the prize. He got the girl.

I look at her now, about to say her sacred vows, and my heart breaks. She's the most beautiful bride in the world, something straight out of a dream, and I wish with all my might that she could be mine.

But that's not what fate had in mind. Triangles always have to end, there always has to be a loser and this time it's me. But, even though I didn't get the girl, even though I died too young, it's hard to think of myself as a loser. After all, I got to love Stephanie Plum, if only for a moment, and that makes everything worth it.

I wouldn't have wanted to live without her and suddenly, watching her say her vows and seeing the love in her eyes as she looks at him, I can't help but wonder if I would have lost her even if I had lived, if this moment might not have been inevitable.

She loves him, she really does, and he loves her too. I watch them become husband and wife and I know I can let her go, because she's already let me go. I had my time with her, precious moments that were the best I ever had, and that was all that fate had in mind for us.

I got Stephanie Plum for a moment and he gets her for a lifetime and maybe that's how it was always meant to be.

I loved her and lost her, but in the immortal words of Charles Dickens, it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

- The End


End file.
